After another delicious breakfast, we said our “goodbyes” and boarded the bus for downtown Seattle again. This time, we were on a mission to “catch some fish”. During the ride in, the boys worked on their journals and third letter home, which I wanted to get in the mail before reaching Canada. The drive was relatively smooth as we drove around the Puget Sound and into city. This time, we had much better luck finding a parking spot right by the market.
We gathered our cameras and headed about 1 block to the Pike’s Place Market, really having no clue what to expect. We knew to watch-out for flying fish and panhandlers, but everything in between was still a mystery to us. We walked through the first few blocks, which included the very first Starbucks. A few blocks further down the road, we spotted the bronze pig outside the Pike’s Place Fish Market. At first, we they weren’t really throwing any fish. We couldn’t really move well in there with all the people, but one of the employees of the market figured-out we were a choir and he asked us to sing a song for him. The boys did quite well, considering everything going on around us.
Then the fun started. Their main guy working the floor asked for our youngest guy, and Sam Strub popped his hand right up. Then, he had him go behind the counter and do a couple of practice catches before launching a fish across the counter to the awaiting Sam behind it. He almost caught it, but it slipped-out at the last moment. Good memory though!
After we washed the fish slime from about 80% of Sam’s body, we walked through the rest of the Pike’s Place Market. There really wasn’t a lot of good things that we were in the market to purchase, so we tried some flavored honey and headed back to the bus to get our lunches, which we ate overlooking the water.
Then, the cool part really started! (I wasn’t upset one bit about leaving downtown Seattle, but the boys had a very good time.) We boarded the bus and made our way about forty-five minutes north to the Boeing Factory in Everett, Washington. It is the largest building (by volume) on the planet! Our tour started at their Welcome Center, which boasts two gift stores, a huge movie theatre and a large museum for the boys to peruse before the real tour begins. Because of their strict photography restrictions, we weren’t able to get any pictures inside, but I can tell you it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The absolute size and complexity of the production floors in this building are incredible. The boys spent a few hours looking at each of the different models of planes being assembled – it was awesome. It also helped that we had an outstanding tour guide named “Christopher” with an Irish accent and muttonchops measuring about a good 12-14 inches on each cheek. He certainly made the trip a little better.
The boys went crazy in the gift store, as did I. Then we made our way up to the observation deck to watch some planes take off from the Boeing airstrip – certainly very cool.
Our concert site was only a short distance away. The boys were pretty exhausted from the day of experiences they had already put in, but they still had some work to do before calling it a day. The concert was packed – just about every seat was filled with a few people standing in the back. They absolutely adored the boys, as they should! These boys rock!
Tomorrow is another exciting day as we are making our way into Canada! I hope all the boys make it across the border with us…
P.J.
If there is any memory of Seattle the LOLCB can take away with them, it is the water, the mountain and all the steep hills. I'm sure many of the boys had never experienced hills as steep as those in Seattle. We have some of those type of hills across the sound in Bremerton where I grew up, but Seattle is the worst for driving up and down hills. Makes for great sledding when they have to close the hills due to snow, however.
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